Protest Action

We chose this powerful and poetic quote from the Policing The Planet excerpt of the Patrisse Cullors interview because it fully encapsulates the socio-political climate right now in our eyes. “The Work” that must be done in our country now is bigger than any one of us as individuals, or party members, it is absolutely critical to unite now in a time of disparity to achieve innovative solutions. In its original context it was referring to a conversation Cullors had had with a Black Lives Matter Ferguson organizer regarding the severity of the human rights and safety situation that is killing countless black men, women, and children occupying a “police state”. While that original message is extremely powerful and profound on its own, we wanted to appropriate the text in a new environment, to let it speak for its original intentions to those who recognize it, while simultaneously taking on new connotations. We had difficulty settling on a succinct message we wanted to convey and found an interesting dialogue in the ambiguity of our chosen text. We chose our locations for the action deliberately in an effort to bring fresh meaning to the piece-- college campuses (ground zero for young revolutionary action and challenging norms), a chain of commercial restaurants (the physical manifestation of capitalism’s height), a large shopping mall (a highly-populated space that walks the line of public and private spheres, designed only for blind consumerism), and the streets of our local areas (the closest to a true public space, the home of protest and disruption). By placing ourselves and our text in these different atmospheres, we aimed to embody and stand in solidarity with the issues our sign took on. We did not seek to shock passer-by but simply to place ourselves in the wrong place, to disrupt their daily routine and provoke a brow to furrow in confusion and thought, maybe even to spark a conversation.